Zip-A-Dee-Akbar!

by Mark SteynClubland Q&AAugust 1, 2017

https://www.steynonline.com/8008/zip-a-dee-akbar

Audio Recording

Mister Bluebird on his shoulder

If you missed our livestream Clubland Q&A earlier today, here's the action replay. Simply click above for an hour of my answers to questions from Mark Steyn Club members around the planet on everything from Eastern European demographics to Trump Tweeting to North Korean nukes to the interminable interlocutory appeals of the Mann vs Steyn case.

We're still experimenting with different formats for these Clubland Q&As - print, audio, video - so let us know whether you like or dislike this version. We have fun in The Mark Steyn Club, so, if you're considering signing up, you can find out more info here.

I'll be back on the radio Wednesday with the great John Oakley live at 5pm Eastern on Toronto's AM640, and back on the telly with Tucker Carlson Wednesday night at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. And there'll be another episode of The Mark Steyn Show later this week.

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46 Reader Comments

Yes the audio quality was rough in mono right side only. I was also unable to advance and therefore started the recording an all time high of 4 times. Haha

James Grove • Aug 5, 2017 at 10:48

Can you make these available in podcast form on iTunes? That would work way better than being tied to a computer to listen to audio.

Bob le Slasha • Aug 2, 2017 at 23:36

Mark sitting in my big fendt tractor slashing a huge vacant block on the east coast of Australia. Got fabulously wealthy baby boomers holiday homes on my lhs and the pacific ocean on my right. Waving to my comrades on the west coast of USA..hullo (wave back please)!!Enjoying the format Coz I can listen in my machine however I mustve missed your trigger warning a la 'interlocutory injunction' it's made me very confused and am now frozen in a catatonic state..please send help!

Peter Jones • Aug 2, 2017 at 19:43

By the way, any chance you'll be visiting South Florida any time soon?

Peter Jones • Aug 2, 2017 at 19:33

Thanks Mark! Catching up on the 'Clubland Q&A'. So enjoying the variety of programming. Pleased to be a member!

ROBERT D LENZ • Aug 2, 2017 at 16:21

It was great but please turn up the volume. The din of my co-workers was overwhelming, but I had already told them to shut up earlier!

Andrew A ROBERT D LENZ • Aug 3, 2017 at 17:41

The problem is that the left hand side of the audio wasn't working. I normally download Steyn's mp3 files onto my phone and then listen to them through earphones on the way home from work. The sound in the left earphone was dead. I thought my earphones were the issue, but other mp3s from Steyn worked fine. If this gets fixed, let me know.

Marc Swerdloff Andrew A • Aug 5, 2017 at 18:33

Agree. Worst format yet

fran lavery • Aug 2, 2017 at 14:46

That was a pretty good Q & A. It flowed and a lot got packed in. I really enjoy whenever I hear Mark sing. My older sisses used to sing that tune from "Song of South" to me and It stuck in my head so I sang it to my little kids not knowing for a long time where it came from but it came in handy whenever I wanted to cheer them up, I never quite knew about that one word "satisfactoral" so I always hum-glided over it and then the film came back to the theaters in the mid 80's and older sis insisted I get the kids to see it. I think it played one day. Pretty darn cute but perhaps could kind of see why they stopped releasing it. Really never heard any fellow sing it live before, so that was a special surprise treat. Presently, can't get the cat-came-back track from Feline Groovy out of my head. The lyrics are a hoot and, yes, escpecially the part Mark came up with about the fat little dictator. Not sure if I can keep on being upset about the other big population issues as I've contributed just one shy of fielding a volleyball team to the population here. I love reading the other comments. Really interesting and learning a lot here. Thank you all!

Joseph W. fran lavery • Aug 2, 2017 at 16:42

I don't know how long you've been following Mark's work, but he long ago entered a song lyric contest about the Sandy Berger documents scandal. His lyric was "The Sandy Pants" (to the tune of "The Candy Man," which got a mention in this show), and even imagining that one being sung is a riot.

Jim Keating • Aug 2, 2017 at 13:59

On your Livestream Clubland Q&A you talked of the significant numbers of European and even American conversions to Islam, especially among women. Something similar was seen in white colonists choosing to live with Indians in 18th century North America. Crevecouer mentions this. His remarks on "their social bond" and "the fictitious society in which we live" still have resonance. "...there must be in their social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to anything to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans! There must be something more congenial to our native dispositions, than the fictitious society in which we live; or else why should children, and even grown persons, become in a short time so invincibly attached to it?" (Letters from an American Farmer, XII) I think Benjamin Franklin also described this phenomenon. I hope there will be more of your Livestream Clubland Q&A.

Beatriz Rodriguez Jim Keating • Aug 2, 2017 at 17:49

Really interesting comment. Perhaps there is something about becoming part of a well demarcated, less complex society or maybe simply the exotic allure of a foreign race. I recently read some James Fenimore Cooper and one of his main characters, Deerslayer, is of white descent but chose to live independently but with closer ties to the native americans. One great attraction to him was living outdoors in concert with the natural world.

PK33 • Aug 2, 2017 at 09:24

OK, this will be the last time I harp on this, I promise. Well, unless Mark takes it up for a question or part of a broader theme, although it's doubtful. Last night I was pondering why it bugs me so much that the "Muslim look" of men with full beards has become so mainstream in Hollywood, fashion, music, etc. The notion that "If everybody is Hitler then nobody is Hitler" Mark mentioned previously is what resonated with me. I believe there is a conscious effort by those on the left to make society LOOK more Muslim-ized, so that if everybody looks like a Muslim then nobody is a Muslim, everybody is a Muslim. Or something to that affect. Anyway, on to something, anything else now.

Andrew A PK33 • Aug 3, 2017 at 17:20

Do not despair. In the time of Mohammad, Arab men shaved their cheeks and chins, leaving their upper lips unshaved. Mohammad wanted his followers to look different, so he commanded them to do the opposite: shave their upper lips, and let everything else grow. At one time I considered shaving off my moustache, but after learning the Islamic doctrine on facial hair, decided to retain the "islamophobic" look. My moustache turns 25 next spring...

Joseph W. • Aug 2, 2017 at 06:12

I have to say I'm very pessimistic about the possibility of a "Conservative YouTube." The problem is, for all its biases, "actual" YouTube allows a much broader range of content than I'd expect most conservatives to. Exhibit A: American Renaissance. Exhibit B: SyeTen Atheist. I'd expect most conservatives to ban AmRen (or call on the proprietors to ban it) for the same reason National Review fired John Derbyshire...to look "respectable" and avoid wearing the scarlet R. I'd expect them to ban SyeTen (as YouTube briefly did) because he's as gloriously rude to Christianity as to Islam and SJWs. That's before you get to the question of what they'd do about erotic content.

Mark replies:

Your points are well taken, but you'll notice I didn't say a "conservative YouTube", only a "non-left-wing YouTube" or "non-left-of-center YouTube". For my own part, I dislike all rigid ideological branding. For example, one of my differences with CRTV was the name, which I felt eliminated the very possibility of persuasion and conversion.

Joseph W Joseph W. • Aug 2, 2017 at 06:40

Well said, then, I misremembered you.

Joseph Dornisch Joseph W. • Aug 2, 2017 at 16:10

Yes, but I heard it said recently (perhaps by you), "any organization that is not explicitly conservative will become more and more liberal over time."

I agree with Mark about how fertility rates in Europe and the implications. But, technical point: "Lowest-low" fertility rate doesn't mean some arbitrary figure like 1.3 beyond which "no population has ever recovered". It means the lowest point that a specific population has been observed reach in periods of low fertility (hence "lowest-low"). In East Germany this was down to 0.8 back in the early 90's and is now at around 1.3-1.4. Russia was down to 1.16 at around 1999 and is now around 1.72. The big shifts are when there is a big change in the age at which women have children. What matters isn't so much the arbitrary figure of 1.3, but what the fertility rate settles down to when these big social changes have run their course and what that is relative to other populations. As I say, I agree with Mark's predictions which are based on existing people, age structure, and current relative fertility rates (i.e., Europe will become Muslim), but not about the inevitability of population implosion from a period of low fertility. Recovery is possible (if not probable). It's important to acknowledge this, or else we might as well all give up passively wait for the apocalypse to come

Mark Haywood John Ashton • Aug 2, 2017 at 04:33

It won't be free speech that tackles Islam. Halal chicken and employment rights ... but we never saw boycotts and murder threats over cartoons!

cheryl kern • Aug 1, 2017 at 22:39

looks like it's official....you really CANNOT please all the people, all the time........ :)

Craig Davis • Aug 1, 2017 at 22:30

Why are western women converting to Islam? My opinion, based on 99.9% ignorance of what motivates any person, especially women, to decide what they do: women want strong men. And too many western men are not strong.

I have to disagree even though I can't claim to understand women. Muslim men are not strong, but their thinking and behaviour is very uniform and predictable. Ironically, it is a female reaction against confusing multiculturalism.

Laura Rosen Cohen Craig Davis • Aug 2, 2017 at 10:06

Because most women, contrary to feminist brainwashing, actually do want what they have always wanted-to be with one man, whose role is protecting them, and being with the father to their children and mostly dealing with the domestic sphere. There are exceptions, but this is hard-wired into female biology. Islam provides obvious and clear sex roles, regimen, a purpose and venerates childbirth (not going into the yucky parts here). There are very few "metrosexual" Muslims (not talking about gay Muslims, or the proclivities of heterosexual Muslims to gay sex or with boys i.e Afghanistan). It's not that Western men are not strong, it's that they have been virtually castrated by the Left over the past several decades and the destruction of the male spirit starts in kindergarten-look how many male children are basically being chemically castrated with "ADHD" drugs. Leftist nihilism is an empty vacuum for he human soul, and Islam is very happy to fill the void.

PK33 Craig Davis • Aug 2, 2017 at 10:50

The old adage, "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything" applies. Religion and family gave people purpose in life, as well as a sense of community and a feeling of belonging, that they truly mattered and had a defined role. When parents don't give a hoot what their children are up to and seem to espouse that every choice in life, every culture has equal merit, then young people meander until they find a place that they think gives their life meaning. It could be Islam, it could be joining a gang, it could be falling in love with a pimp, it could be having children out of wedlock, the list goes on forever... Look not to Islam for why this phenomenon exists, look at Western culture.

Craig Davis Andrew A • Aug 2, 2017 at 11:04

I agree with your correction and appreciate the tone of your note. Many project the appearance of strength, but are as weak as any other man. And, as evidenced by the (disportionate) abuse of wives, may be weaker than most. Thanks for caring enough to respond!

Craig Davis Laura Rosen Cohen • Aug 2, 2017 at 11:05

Very well said. Thank you.

Craig Davis Laura Rosen Cohen • Aug 2, 2017 at 12:08

Laura, one more comment in response to your thoughtfuil post. I, too, am deeply distressed by the chemical castration you mention. While I have seen ADHD treatment be a stronly positive thing in the lives of two boys, i suspect it is too often used to keep boys from being boys: focused on what interets them at the moment, not what interests the adult of the moment. wiggly, boisterous, and, sometimes, aggressive. I am also deeply concerned by the emotional castration boys are subjected to from grade school through their university days. They are being taught that male aggression is evil and must be completely repressed. Males were designed (hard wired if you will) to be agressive in some situations and, while it is of great importance that we properly channel and manage our aggression, respressing it is a destructive forcing. Even now, in my sixites, i have to continue to learn proper channeling of aggression. But I was able to channel my great energy and aggression into a profession that requires deep thinking, great emotional and physical stamina, and aggression (to be able to compete and succeed against companies whose resoureces were 10x to 50x my own). Properly channeled and controlled male aggression is a highly desireable atribute and should not be repressed. But the leftist nihilism you mention, is pushing males both physically and mentally into the empty vacuum. And with us, the females are too often dragged along for the bad ride or left to fend for themselves and God will hold all of us who succumb to the nonsense accountable for the mess that results. You possess unusual perception and courage to hold and publicly epress your views!

Laura Rosen Cohen Andrew A • Aug 2, 2017 at 15:52

To be fair, not even women understand women, so don't feel bad...

Laura Rosen Cohen Craig Davis • Aug 2, 2017 at 16:00

Thank you for your kind remarks. The ideological castration is based on physical (drugging, trying to limit aggression with behaviour modification, shaming) and emotional torture-absolutely. I agree completely that men are hard-wired for aggression in many situations. Getting married and having children seems to temper that and channel it in a good way. So nihilist feminism and militant secularism and individualism has torn both men and women (and woefully, children) away from the situations that work best for them. Everyone loses! May I ask what general field you refer to when you speak of your occupation? I find it very interesting that you say you are still channeling aggression properly in your sixties. As I say, men and women are wired differently. There is a real war against boys and men, and women and girls lose big time ("BIGLY") as a result.

Brod Andrew A • Aug 2, 2017 at 17:56

Speaking from a limited experience concerning friends that have fallen for Muslim men, they have not done so from a position of strength or confidence but one of "this will really freak my family out" or " I have no idea what I'm doing but this guy seems available, why not?" The relationships in the cases I know did not last.

Charles Romer • Aug 1, 2017 at 20:36

I could not stop listening for the whole hour! Hope you don't change it but instead repeat it from time to time. Every item was interesting; none boring; a few essential. Would make a great podcast too.

Francis X Meaney • Aug 1, 2017 at 20:24

The problem was the sound was not loud enough for us old folks. How about some volume control?

Gary Petersen • Aug 1, 2017 at 19:55

Throughly enjoyed the show! I'm now educated on the birthright topic...I'm Canadian and didn't realize that our country subscribes to such a terrible rule/law. How about, HAVE YOU GOT IT?..I HAVE, for your tshirts. I have a select group of my email contacts who have got it.......the IT is knowing the dangers of Islam. I can converse with these GOT IT people without being unfriended and or being thrown into their conspiracy threat kook file!

Marian Booker • Aug 1, 2017 at 19:48

I loved today's Q&A. There is nothing finer than Mark Steyn, live. The sound was coming through only one side of my headphones, though! Maybe push the plug in a bit further for the next one?

Donald Weatherwax Marian Booker • Aug 2, 2017 at 00:28

I second that, Marian - it was right channel only for me. (I downloaded it a few hours ago.)

Ralph Westfall • Aug 1, 2017 at 18:41

Print please--I'm hearing challenged. Also print is quicker to skim through and enables searching on specific words.

Mark replies:

It's a curious phenomenon of our times that, whatever format you do something in, people always want it in an entirely different one. I have a few thoughts on this in the first issue of our new newsletter The Clubbable Steyn.

James O'Sullivan • Aug 1, 2017 at 18:15

So, the live Clubland USA is on for an hour, 4PM eastern, 1PM Pacific. Someone seem to assume that club members are either independently wealthy or on the dole. What about us in the middle class?

Mark replies:

Well, we're trying to pick times that aren't the middle of the night for all our audience - this one was North American afternoon, European evening and Pacific morning. We'll try to move it around a bit, but no matter how you juggle it's never going to work out for everyone.

Patti Engelke James O'Sullivan • Aug 1, 2017 at 18:55

You must be a lefty... you are in the wrong club....

PK33 James O'Sullivan • Aug 1, 2017 at 19:00

Agreed. I had to knock off early to tune in. I suppose I could listen to it canned in the future, since skedaddling home and getting one of the first few questions in doesn't mean it will be answered anyway. Yes, I am still sulking.

James O\'Sullivan Patti Engelke • Aug 2, 2017 at 08:08

You seem nice.

Patti Engelke James O\'Sullivan • Aug 2, 2017 at 08:46

Just perceptive. You are a liberal spying on the club and trying to be clever with your class comment. Obviously there is not a time convenient for everyone. The jig is up James.

James O\'Sullivan PK33 • Aug 2, 2017 at 10:12

Me too.

James O\'Sullivan Patti Engelke • Aug 2, 2017 at 11:05

oy vey

PK33 • Aug 1, 2017 at 18:03

While I enjoyed this episode of Q&A, the format could improve. Why not read the questions in the order they were submitted? It seemed they were chosen by luck of the most recent post.